“My Wife Lied About Who She Was”

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Recently, I caught my wife, of two months (partner of 14 months) in a few devastating lies. “Sarah” and I have known each other since we were five years old. We lost touch after the 8th grade and both found each other in early 2013 after our respective divorces.

While we were in the dating phase of our relationship, Sarah was very self-conscious about her weight. She assured me that she would lose the weight which she claimed she gained while taking medication to help conceive a child. Sarah showed me multiple photos of what she used to look like. Although I had no issue with the way she currently looked, she stated many times that, if I stuck with her through these tough post-medical times, I would have her the way she used to be in less than a year. So there were 5-6 photos she sent to me and I was blown away. I had already fallen in love with her personality and I got along with her better than anyone in my past.

Soon after those statements, my wife brought up her finances. She stated that she used to make over $200K a year and that, while she wanted to take care of me and my son, she couldn’t due to some legal issues which forced her to quit her high-paying job. However, she stated that she would be able to resume her old job in September of 2014.

Now back to her weight concerns: months went by and she hadn’t started losing weight. I never questioned her regarding it, but things weren’t going as she said they would. I began to resent her for making no effort on the promises she made. She continued to tell me she needed more time and that by particular months of the year she would look like this and like that. I just let her do her thing as the weight was not a concern to me as it was to her.

In January of this year we bought a house that was a little but out of our price range. She again referred to her old job that she would go back to in September and that the house was worth struggling for for a few months. I agreed, and we went forward with the home purchase.

In March of this year we decided we wanted to try to have a baby. Thinking it was going to take a while due to her past medical conditions, we wanted to get off the birth control sooner rather than later. Literally, after one week off the birth control, we conceived.

Soon after, I started thinking about all the stories my wife had shared with me and things just weren’t adding up. We had been arguing over the lack of intimacy and sex in our marriage. I thought there was something wrong with me and had my blood tested as I had no sex drive or desire to have sex with Sarah. She began to think it was because she hadn’t lost any weight. I assured her that that wasn’t the case, but honestly I wasn’t sure anymore. I was simply not attracted to her. One night, after several weeks of arguing over the same topic she stated that eventually she was going to look elsewhere for the intimacy and that this kind of behavior leads couples to divorce.

Again, all the things I wanted to confront her over came flooding to my head. So one night while at work I decided to check on some of the pics she sent me back in early 2013. I uploaded the images to a reverse photo website and it tracked down where the images originated from. To my disbelief, all the photos she stated were of her had, in fact, were of strangers and had been downloaded off the internet.

I decided to confront my wife with what I’d found. Her initial reaction was again to lie to me, but after several moments she admitted that she lied about the images and that they were not her. I asked her what else she had lied about and said that I wanted to see proof regarding her past medical concern and proof that she made $200K a year at her old job. Needless to say, she admitted to lying about both those topics as well.

So my problem now is that I do not know what to do as we are expecting a child in December of this year. I have a massive mortgage that we cannot afford. She created a fictitious person for some reason, and I do not think I can ever trust her again and do not look at her the same way I did in the past.

How do I/we recover from this? — Not What I Signed Up For

Get thee to a lawyer, my friend — and a good therapist, while you’re at it, and a great financial advisor, too. Obviously, you cannot continue this sham of a marriage and, the sooner you get out and move on, the better. Put your house on the market, file for divorce, and downsize to a much more affordable home.

As for the baby coming… have you accompanied Sarah to her obgyn? Have you seen proof that she is, in fact, really pregnant? And I’m not talking about a positive pee stick. I mean hearing the heartbeat in the doctors office, seeing an ultrasound, hearing a doctor tell you “congratulations.” If you haven’t gotten this kind of confirmation yet, I wouldn’t go sign up for birthing classes just yet. However, if you are 100% sure Sarah is pregnant and you both are 100% sure you are keeping the baby, then you need to start preparing yourself to be a father and co-parent. You can love your baby and take great care of him or her without being in a relationship with its mother. But you do want to speak to a lawyer about your entire story and make sure you are as protected as you can be — legally and financially. And you’ll need to work as hard as you can to keep a civil relationship with Sarah in order to give your child the best chance for a normal childhood. It sounds like the kid’s going to have a crazy mother, so it’s going to be your job to provide the stability he’ll need.

First thing first though: get confirmation about that pregnancy because I have a strong hunch it only exists in Sarah’s fantasyland where she’s 110 lbs. and makes 200K a year.

Me too. There is no way that a person that would lie about this stuff is not also massively shallow and insecure about everything else. I’m wondering if the LW is the same way or he just likes them that way·

Yea, I don’t believe for one minute that he didn’t marry this girl because of what she might turn into…a supermodel with a big bank account. Sorry buddy. Not an ounce of sympathy for you. You sound like an idiot.

Something about believing whatever someone tells you no questions asked, then marrying that person even though you have doubts, and buying a house outside your budget and trying to start a family because your wife “should” have her old 200k/year job back “soon” rubs me the wrong way.

To me I read it more like, the LW was maybe a bit more trusting because of an existing relationship (they’d known each other as children) and so maybe that’s why more questions weren’t raised? I also think it’s a bit fishy to not ask more questions/specifics about this “job” and things like that, but maybe that’s why decisions were made in that way was how I was envisioning it.

I can’t imagine doing things like buying a house and getting pregnant on the promise of a high paying job coming 3/4 of a year later. That’s some of the most irrational and irresponsible thinking I’ve come across.

Agree. Even if everything she said had been true, there’s still no guarantee she’d actually get that job back. Especially given that she said she left due to “legal issues” which don’t magically vanish after a certain amount of time has passed.

It’s like when I repeat over and over and over again how much your buddy buddy relationship with LBH does NOT bother me ONE BIT! NOT AT ALL. I AM SO HAPPY THAT YOU TWO ARE BUDDY BUDDIES. THRILLED. THE MORE THE MERRIER. JEALOUSY WHAT? NEVER!

i think that was like the best part that illustrated how crazy this lady is? and he said that he never brought up her weight to her, but that she was the one who kept saying that it was going to change… like, she was the one who had to keep talking about it, like AP is saying above. . it would be super weird if my partner kept telling me things like “oh dont worry, just stick with my while im ugly and itll be ok!” “just a few more months!” ect. that is a red flag in itself

Yeah, I agree–I was side-eyeing the weight stuff until I got to the part where her “old self” photos were fake. Then I was like, oh, okay… LW is just trying to paint a picture? He certaintly didn’t make any smart decisions, but I think we’re being a bit harsh.

Alright alright, I hate being harsh, especially if it could cause the LW to just ignore all the good advice because he feels attached. I’m certainly not on Team Wife or anything. LW, I couldn’t handle all those lies either. The best advice here is Wendy’s which is: confirm the pregnancy, see a family law attorney, and see a therapist. The last part is to help you figure out what went wrong and how you can make better decisions in the future… Good luck!

I ask this because she would still resemble the person she “used to be”.

I know this for real. I was 110lbs in high school. 10 years later, I’m 250lbs. I have pictures of me from then &show them to people and no one would ever say “oh that’s not you”. I mean my face still kinda looks the same. My cheeks are a bit chubbier but I still have the same smile.

Well the number of times I thought my friends had fake IDs even though they were real IDs. Sometime your face can change a lot in a few years, and sometimes on picture, you look at a funny angle, or you had bangs back then, or something like that.

The number of friends that hated me after I said really loudly “THAT’S A FAKE ?” in line for a club. It’s never a fake, my friends are good people, I should know that.

The fact that he mentions, “she sent me pictures” was a red flag…made it sound like they reconnected online? Maybe I’m reading too much into that…what do y’all think? LW, are you there, can you clarify??

Whatever the case, yes, you need confirmation of a positive pregnancy test from your wife’s OB, and then you can start making decisions.

Oh yes, that alarmed me. As did the glossing over of the wife’s “legal issues” that prevented her from going back to her job right away. Legal issues aren’t always shady, but the fact that he didn’t seem to ask for details regarding the legal issues and just assumed that she could go back to work and then bought a house out of his price range based on this assumption really bothers me. Like, did they spend any time together at all during their year-long courtship?

Me too. The fact that they “reconnected”, but she was sending him photos and was able to concoct this fictitious story about the job, etc., led me to believe it was an LDR and then one partner moved to be with the other.

I have no problems with meeting online–my husband and I met on match.com–but you have to be smart about it. This guy was not smart. Naive and too trusting…but not smart.

I figured they reconnected on FB (old school mates) and the wife only had “recent” photos posted, so she sent him “older” ones. And, if it was a long distance FB thing, I can see how this happens. The LW knows this woman is fundamentally who she says she is. He has laid on her in real life before. He grew up with her. She’s not lying about her name, address, where she grew up, etc. She is “friends” or maybe even real friends with people he knows. He trusts her because, well, why wouldn’t he? Yes, it’s naive, and he definitely should have followed up on the job and legal issues thing before buying a house, but who sends someone they know fake pictures of themselves? Who lies about a job to someone they know “in real life” and are actively building a life with? Strangers on the internet, yeah, you think about that stuff, but it’s really almost paranoid to think that somebody you know is basically who they say they are would make up this whole fake life. I put a lot of blame this on the false intimacy of the internet. Except for the buying a house on the promise of a future job thing. That was just dumb, LW. Confirm the pregnancy. Then get a divorce. And in the future, be very cautious about people who keep saying they’re going to be someone they’re clearly not today.

Yeah, I’m wondering how old this LW is? I mean, we (“we” as a society) are very hand-wringy over teens getting in trouble with social media, but I think there’s a certain generation of older people who throw caution to the wind when chatting up others on FB. I feel like LW falls into that category.

I think he’s probably a bit older, too. Old enough for both of them to be divorced (well, he should probably check on her marital status, actually), him to have a kid, her to maybe plausibly have ever had a $200,000 a year job and for her to have “old” photos of how she used to look that could feasibly be not exactly how she looked in high school but not now she looks now, either.

I love this comment. My grandfather has gotten tons of those things that send junk mail to your whole email contacts list. Every time I call him and I’m like “I got this email from you, you need to change your password…” and he’s like “I have no idea how that could have happened.” And I always try to explain to him to stop clicking links, stop using the same password for your email account and other things.

Also recently my mom sent me and my siblings a warning about that thing where an unknown number is calling phones and hanging up after one ring then if you call back you get slammed by long distance charges. And she’s like “don’t call back unknown numbers.” And I was like “why don’t you send this to grandpa?” People in their 20s screen on purpose, we’d never call back a number we didn’t know that didn’t leave a message without at least googling it!

At the same time though… how many pictures post-2005 do you have printed on paper ? I don’t know, all my pictures are on my computer, so I usually share them with Dropbox or something. (I’m just hoping this is not as shady as we might think!)

I’ll admit, when the initial issue seemed to be that the wife had sworn up and down she would lose weight and hadn’t, I was like, “Um, so the woman had trouble losing weight…? Cut her some slack!!!” But obviously this is SO MUCH BIGGER than just weight loss.

LW, why would you marry a woman who was so clearly lying to you long before you got married? I know it doesn’t make any difference, and I don’t mean to beat you up over something you can’t go back and change, but WHAT. What were you thinking???

Get to counseling, both couples’ and individual, so you can get to the bottom of this and figure out both who your wife really is and why she’s lying to you. Maaaaaaybe there’s a way to save this? I can’t think of one, but this is so beyond weird that I’m pretty sure I can’t think straight anyway. But if you can’t fix it, I bet you can get it annulled, because this woman is clearly not who she’s told you she is. So beyond what Wendy said – and what I just said – if this marriage is indeed doomed, next time you meet someone and they seem like maybe they are lying, don’t just stick your head in the sand. Get to the bottom of it, and BEFORE you marry.

But that’s what is kind of pissing me off about this letter. The wife has lied about all these things. And LW, like an idiot, married a woman and bought a house that was too expensive for them and went forward with baby making, on all the wife’s representation that she’d get her $200k back? He’s an idiot. Yet, in all of this, her damn representations about losing weight is what he focuses on the most. Wendy is right, get to therapy, LW!

yeah I agree AP, he focuses for over 2/3 of the letter on the weight and really does not seem to concerned they are about to bring a child in to this mess of lies. Also who buys a house that far out of their price range? I mean what? That is on him. There are so many mutual red flags in this situation. Therapy and divorce and I personally am really hoping that the pregnancy is another lie his wife is telling him.

Oh that’s true – I didn’t think of it like that! He’s all like, “CLEARLY she’s lying about who she is because she hasn’t lost this weight. Why hasn’t she lost it? I think she’s a fake because of this weight. Oh, and she maybe didn’t have this job she won’t tell me why she was fired from, and the pictures she sent are of someone else, but Y’ALL. The WEIGHT.” Really? I mean, I know lots of women who are like, I’m going to lose thirty pounds by this pool party in three weeks! And those women are exactly who they say they are. But I’m not sure I’ve met anyone who can’t go back to their $200K jobs for mysterious “legal reasons” they refuse to discuss, or anyone who has sent pictures of strangers and said, “TOTALLY ME, y’all.” (And I just…how do you not notice?)

I for one AM going to lose 30 pounds by my family reunion at the lake in August, damnitalltohell! Starting later of course because I just bought an egg sandwich from the Eastman Egg Company food truck.

Also, I don’t know where to put this which is a sign I probably shouldn’t put it anywhere but: while my partner was in my office, I sneezed – a sudden and violent sneeze. Snot flew out and landed on my hand (which was about 6 inches away from my face – didn’t make it to cover my face in time). Some of the snot dangled off my fingers and some of it missed my hand and landed on a file. * Oy.

I haven’t sat here and really thought this whole timeline through, but it all seems really weird to me. Also, unless you bought this house yourself, how were you unaware of how much money your wife was/was not making at her last job? When my husband and I bought a house we needed all sorts of previous years’ tax returns and pay-stubs and bank account info. We went over all of that together with our mortgage lady while we were applying for the loan. It seems off to me that you could go through the home buying process and yet remain clueless about this.

Yeah, Llama Guy and I have been going through all that – credit scores, proof of income, financial history, current loans, etc. – just to apply to rent a townhouse. I think a house would be way more in depth. And I certainly wouldn’t be renting with him if he had refused to discuss his financial background with me.

Some mortgage lenders are shady, though, and they give people mortgages are very high interest rates that they are unlikely to afford. Also, I remember when I was house shopping, those online calculators based on my income said that I could afford a house that cost like $250k, but I’m pretty sure that would have left me eating ramen noodles every meal and not being able to afford the matinee movie or the gas to get there. That’s hardly the lifestyle I wanted… LW and his wife may have bought a house that they can technically “afford” based on that math, but not with money left over to live. He’s proven himself gullible, I’m sure certain lenders could smell that a mile away.

Holy shitballs, based on my husbands and my combined income (i bought my current house while single) the internet calculator now thinks we can buy a $600,000 house and pay almost $4000 a month in mortgage/escrow etc. This is clearly absurd and literally twice what I would be comfortable paying… no wonder so many people get themselves in trouble by buying too much house.

We did the homebuying thing a little backwards- We had found the house first, then got pre-approved. We told the lenders to only pre-approve us for the list price of the house and not a penny more. I’m really curious about what they would have pre-approved us for, though!

When we went through our paperwork I just did it all. I got all of the appropriate paperwork, scanned it and sent it away. Mr. Grass does none of that stuff in our house. But I have all access to all of his paperwork, I read his emails for him and open his mail. BUT he knows how much I make (lol) and so it’s no surprise that I know how much he makes.

you know, there is some positive things to pull from this letter Like, how quickly one’s life can do a 180 in such a short span of time. It gives me hope that, like, in 14 months, so much in my life could be different – hopefully all for good, you know? I guess I’m still positive because it’s only Tuesday, so early in the work week. As me how I feel on Thursday.

I had been dating Llama Guy for just a few months this time last year and now we’re getting married this fall! It definitely amazes me how quickly my life changed, mostly for the better (finding out my dad has cancer was not a good surprise, obviously).

get to a lawyer. thats literally all you can do here, unless you just want to pretend that none of this really happened and have a relationship with her. you can *hopefully* get the marriage annulled, maybe even sue her for what she did (?), and at the very least clean up the financial mess you are in. . i really hope she isnt pregnant.

i was going to keep quiet about all the ways in which I think you had it coming, but I just got back and reread “take care of me and my son”. YOU HAVE A SON? As in, not potentially in your wife’s belly if this is not also a lie, but another living, breathing, already born son? And you went and did ALL THIS? That was fucking irresponsible.

I’m pretty sure you didn’t come here for sympathy…so you aren’t going to get any from me. Naive doesn’t even cover all the things that are wrong here. Do WWS…after only 2 months of marriage, you should still be on your honeymoon. And next time, dude, pay attention…seriously.

This lady really scares the crap out of me. LW, I don’t care where you have to go live to get away from her or how many minimum wage jobs you have to take to afford to get out, but I would be seriously concerned about her stabbing you in your sleep now that you’ve exposed her lies. And if you brought a child from a previous relationship into this, think of their safety and get the eff out.

Also, keep as much evidence as you can of how crazy she is, because you’re gonna need it in the custody battle for the kid she’s pregnant with (if she even is pregnant). I would like to give you the benefit of the doubt thatyou actually did ask a lot of questions and just left out the details for your letter, and that she’s just that good of a liar. But sheesh, man. And next time you’re in a relationship… think about what DW would say if you spelled it all out, and if it starts to sound insane, it probably is.

Wendy actually did figure into the beginning of my current relationship! I’d been lurking on the site for a long time when I met my fiancé last February and was familiar with her lists of things you should do/discuss before you move in together and get engaged. And I’m actually glad we waited so long to move in together even though we’ve been engaged since last August because I knew DW advises waiting a year to cohabitate. I mean, I wasn’t constantly asking myself WWDWD (nor did I make a bracelet that says that, I promise), but it was nice to have a trusted resource for relationship stuff!

Yessssss. Let’s not be too mean to this LW – while believing these lies/moving quickly in a relationship don’t say the best things about his judgment, he is also not the first person to be fooled by someone he loves. LW, just to the best you can to protect yourself. From what you’ve told us, your wife is not stable, has lied to you from the beginning, so focus on getting away and keeping yourself and your son(!) safe in the process.

Although, yeah, @bethany has a point. How on earth did you manage to buy a house without seeing a W-2?

It’s hard to answer this letter without bashing the LW, but it’s also not productive. I blindly loved a guy I shouldn’t have once and made some bad choices; I think I’m lucky that he was just a jerk and not an unstable psycho liar or I’m not sure where I would have ended up….

The key is that the LW is asking for help, needs to GTFO, and us being harsh is not going to help.

She lied…. but the bigger problem for you is that you blindly believed her. You have a son. You need to be more responsible and accountable for your choices. Why were you so willing to believe the fantasy? Is she even in a career that can demand $200 k a year? Never mind the lie….who cares if she actually had old pics of herself thinner. That doesn’t mean anything. And not for anything but you are protesting too much about it not bothering you. It does. You are allowed your preferences. So stop lying to yourself. That is kind of how you got here – isn’t it? Get a paternity test and focus on providing a stable life for your kids. Make better choices in the future. Shame on her for lying but shame on you for choosing to believe her to the detriment of your child.

I dunno… I can’t jump on the LW for this. The same kinda thing happened to my mom, and even though she made a lot of blind mistakes I love my mom so much so I have to empathize.

My mom got engaged to a guy she was dating within 3 months, and married within 9 months. She figured that since she’d known him as a casual acquaintance for a year or so before, and the fact that she was in her 50’s and had life experience, it was ok to get married that friggin fast.

There were SOOOOO many red flags that she ignored because she was so caught up in the excitement of falling in love and getting a second chance at marriage and being engaged and planning a wedding and she just wanted so much for everything to work.

Long story short, this guy was NOT who he said he was, turned out to be a huge emotionally abusive, financially irresponsible douchebag and 3 years later they are now getting a divorce and she’s struggling to recover from the financial mess he left her with.

In hindsight, looking back I’m like how the hell did you not think twice about marrying this guy when you knew all this shit about him? And she realizes now that she made A LOT of mistakes. But she’s my mom. I love her so much so I have to be understanding of where he head was at at the time and I have to be supportive now while she’s going through a divorce.

So to the LW, I understand where you’re coming from. Follow Wendy’s advice and get out of this marriage now. And to everyone else, please cut the guy some slack. We’ve all made some really stupid mistakes in life and thought to ourselves, “What the hell was I thinking?” Unfortunately there is now an apparent baby on the way, so all he can do now is own up to his mistakes and do the absolute best he can for this child moving forward.

Is your mom my mom? She got married too quickly twice. The first one was emotionally abusive and the second one was an alcoholic. Both of the marriages were mistakes. The second one (her third spouse; my dad was ok) was also WAY too quickly.

You’d be amazed how well a pathological lying creeptastic sociopath (or bordering on it) can fool people. I knew Mr AM for years, like 5 years, was super close friends with him for two years, was super close friends with his friends for the three prior to that, engaged for a year, and he’s quite honestly the most monstrous man I’ve ever been with. I excused any red flags because they just weren’t HIM. Clearly he was having some “issues” and needed some therapy but… it was like it was a zit and some oxy would clear that up? Yeah I thought therapy would do that… since I had done Dumb Shit in the past and gone to therapy, and fairly quickly resolved my idiocy within 12-18 months or so at most, usually more like 3-6. It never occured to me there are people out there who actually want to be assholes, who don’t mind being assholes, and who will do anything to KEEP being assholes because they LIKE IT and don’t want to change. Call that naive, I sure do! But it just really was beyond my comprehension someone could be an admitted complete jackhole and do NOTHING to fix that, nor want to.

OMG. There were so many red flags I do not know how you could not see them. First, exactly what “legal troubles” could cause someone to lose a $250K job, assuming she even had one? That’s huge all by itself. Second, you should never, ever, ever buy more house than you can afford, and be very wary of someone who tries to talk you into it. Your wife is a pathological liar, but you made some pretty bad choices, here. Get yourself out of this mess pronto.

What the hell is wrong with you? Why would you marry someone is such a short amount of time not knowing all the important things and why, god, why would you have a baby with someone that you don’t even like anymore and the ship is sinking with both of you in it? What is wrong with you?

I have worked in family law for almost 5 years, and sadly, this happens. A LOT.

I think it is also really crappy the LW married someone for something they WOULD be, not who they were at the time they were dating/getting to know each other. He based a marriage on something that was not 100% concrete, and that is his own fault.

He needs to see a lawyer. I am not sure which state he lives in, but maybe he can get an annulment due to deception and fraud.

Exactly. Even if she hadn’t been lying about her previous weight or salary, those aren’t reality NOW. It’s possible even if she weren’t lying conning him, she might not have lost the weight and she may not have got the job back, anyway. It makes perfect sense that someone who’d marry a person based on who she promises to be in a few months would also buy a house he can’t afford based on his supposed future income. Again, even if she hadn’t been lying all along, nothing was certain about the things she promised. LW, the first thing you need to do is recognize the difference between possibility and certainty. The second thing you need to do is learn to see situations, and appraise them, for what they are NOW. The third thing you need to do is get yourself one hell of a good attorney.

She sounds like a con-artist. LW, is the house in your name? My mom- beautiful, healthy, intelligent, independent, doctor- married a con-man when I was 11 or 12. I really liked him, too. He was very convincing! Maybe Sarah’s pretty convincing, too? My mom got screwed. He lied about who he was. He stole from her. He made her sell the house I grew up in and secretly made sure the new house they bought was only in her name. It was only last year, when my mom bought her new house, that that whole fiasco had finally been cleared from her credit (15 years later). . Sarah lied about her identity. You bought a house during this time and are supposedly pregnant. Now she’s bringing up divorce? I’m sorry, LW. Seriously protect yourself and your assets.

Really guys, the smartest people get conned. Let’s not attack this guy for it. Should he have maybe picked up on a few warning signs? Sure, but we could say the same thing about victims of abuse. She lied about her identity and income- repeatedly- and conned the LW into buying a house and starting a family based on those lies. It was a devastating scam. He was conned- he doesn’t need to be told he’s an idiot, for chrissake.

For realz. I’m really surprised at the tone of the comments…like, some are harsh but contain good points (like, it was just a more negative read than I had–which is cool, we all have different opinions!), BUUUT others are straight up like, “you’re a dumbass”.

He was lied to, this is true, and it is unfortunate that love or whatever it was blinded him to reason; but he also made a lot of really irresponsible choices and is sort of blaming her for that. I mean he chose to buy a house he can’t afford on the idea she may in over 1/2 a year have a job that pays a lot….and he chose to go forward with getting her pregnant after less than 2 months of marriage, when he was already doubting her, unhappy, and a host of other red flags. If he doesn’t accept any responsibility for these decisions and just blames it all on the fact she lied about her weight and a job she once had and would have again, I mean he is culpable for his part in how this all has gone down and should own them and take the steps to rectify them. He also has an innocent son he brought in to this situation and should take the advice of Wendy and I guess the more compassionate people to get divorced, find if this child is real and pursue therapy.

There’s a big difference of intention between thinking someone loves you and wants to stop hurting you and then figuring out it’s not true and thinking you can get insta-money and a woman out of your league if only you put up with a few months of being married to someone you wouldn’t want forever. The seconds scenario is much more shallow.

Sure, smart people get conned. But he intentionally got her pregnant even though he already started to resent her for not losing weight and making more money. She didn’t accidentally get pregnant- he made a conscious choice to bring a child into the world with someone he didn’t like anymore, who he knew by then was lying to him and he wasn’t even attracted to anymore. NOT OKAY.

Exactly. Sad for him sure – but he put his existing child through this and is now bringing another one into the world – when he could have prevented the fraud by being a little more diligent and realistic. And I believe you need to be responsible for your choices. This wasn’t a con out of left field. This was a choice on his part to be wilfully blind – bank on a thin, rich wife when that wasn’t what he married.

Yeah, I try to have sympathy for him for being conned, but the point I made above was that even if she WEREN’T lying, and this wasn’t a con situation but a regular old expectations-did-not-amount-to-reality, his decisions would still be pretty bad. He made a lot of decisions based on what he hoped she would become, not what their reality actually was. Even if she hadn’t been a con person, his decisions would still be pretty poor. Like I said, it makes perfect sense that the kind of person who would buy a house he can’t afford would also marry someone based on what he hopes she’ll turn into.

I think if my fiance told me he used to make $200K at his last job and planned to work there again, I would have believed him and based my expectations of our relationship on that. I think if he had told me he planned to get in Olympian shape I would have believed him, too. So much of our relationships are based on future expectations. I expect my fiance to do what he says he’ll do. Do I KNOW that he’ll be a good father and definitely want kids some day? Of course not, but I absolutely expect him to based on everything he’s said to me. . Con-artists can really, really be convincing. They grew up together, too, so there was an inherent trust there. Smarter people are more trusting, anyway (http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/03/study-smarter-people-are-more-trusting/284520/).

The reason I don’t care for this LW is because it seems he only liked her for what she might turn into (a skinny girl with $$$). If that weren’t the case, maybe I’d have the sympathy you do.

Anyway, if someone was making $200K at some previous time and was currently unemployed, with no explanation as to why other than “legal issues,” I would so not expect them to be making that again any time soon. I think its really dangerous to base your relationship on future expectations other than that they will continue to be who they are right now. Who this girl was was never good enough for this LW.

Agreed. And they knew each other from age 5 to 12 (or however old 8th graders are), then lost touch. It’s not like they knew each other as adults at all, and there was no basis for him to trust what she was saying.

Yeah I’m pretty sure he realizes he’s an idiot. You can’t write for 7 paragraphs about how you were fooled and not… well feel like a fool. I think Wendy’s advice is great. Get a divorce, find out if she’s in fact pregnant, and go from there.

Either this woman is mentally ill, or she’s a predator. I lean toward the former. LW, you need a lawyer stat, to protect yourself, and a therapist to help you figure out why you consciously or unconsciously ignored so many brightly waving red flags. You need to understand and own your part in this debacle, instead of pinning all the blame on your “wife.”

I just wanted to say that I totally get how these things can start although it’s harder for me to imagine it going this far.

I’ve mentioned this story before but several years ago, I reconnected with a high school acquaintance on Facebook. He was actually my friend’s boyfriend at the time. I remember him being really cool and kind of brooding. Attractive in that alluring way even though he wasn’t necessarily handsome. Anyway, I was living up north and he was in Florida. It’s a long stupid story but I ended up visiting him and he just immediately assumed we were in a committed relationship. I was really unsure but sort of trapped there and talked myself into it. I kept ignoring all his weird clingy behavior because we had “history.” I ended up visiting twice and he came to see me once over the course of a few months. Even with that short amount of time, I quickly realized that he was obsessive and possessive. He wanted immediate Facebook confirmation of our relationship and then went on attack mode when a male friend wrote a comment on my wall. Said my friend was trying to provoke him. Scary shit. I broke it off at that point and then got lots of weird and upsetting calls from him accusing me of giving him STDs, cheating on him, etc. All for a “relationship” that spanned a few long weekends. AWFUL. One of my biggest regrets ever. And I know the only reason I let it go on for even a few months was because we grew up together and I doubted my instincts.

Lesson learned. There is something warm and nostalgic about reconnecting with people from our past. But we cannot let our guards down and assume that our childhood memories have anything to do with how a person behaves as an adult.